Crossing through the glades adorned with marsh rabbits and waterfowl to arrive at Jekyll Island its hard to imagine that this sleepy, secluded island was once home to what a 1904 issue of Munsey's Magazine heralded as "the richest, the most exclusive, the most inaccessible club in the world."

Getting to know Newport, Rhode Island, is -- how should I put this? -- just a bit different from touring around other famous resorts. You were thinking a quick walk-through of The Breakers or another summer mansion? Think again.

Soon, the Philippines will be engulfed by an election fever. And in promising emerging markets like the Philippines, electoral cycles are extremely crucial to shaping the short-to-medium term growth trajectory of the country.

His story starts with the launch of Studio 54 in a former opera house and CBS studio on West 54th Street. "That was the first business -- all the forces of the universe came together," he says. "It was like holding onto a lightning bolt."

The New York Times reported yesterday that Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner's chief political backer, Ken Griffin, made $1.3 billion last year as manager of the hedge fund Citadel Capital. Griffin made as much personally as 26,000 average Americans making the median wage.

Is it the blue-white skin, sensuous black velvet dress, bold breasts? No, it is her striking profile. That sharp, almost phallic nose, even more strongly drawn by the painter as if to challenge the viewers to put aside their prudery. She doesn't care; she's above it.

Long before today's Republicans made obstruction their raison d'etre, Gilded Age Democrats turned "No" into a political rallying cry, and, in the process, rolled back some of the era's most important social reforms.

The whole indented coastline with its layered pink granite cliffs and isles is the result of Mother Nature's efforts as a sculptress when she tempered the region with the onslaughts and retreats, the grindings and tearings of the last ice age.

Politically the moral leadership of the pope is bad news for those Republicans, conservatives, Tea Party advocates and libertarians who politically worship at the altar of the unbridled and unregulated excesses of capitalism that Francis deplores.

In the year 1890 we had no TV and radio, nothing but newspapers, and the newspapers noted that year that more than half of America's vast wealth was owned by only 1 percent of the population. Sound familiar?

The 2013 Republican shutdown of the United States government could be far more damaging to the country than the previous GOP-led crusade that used extortion as a tactic to try to force the hand of a Democratic president.

Despite the disgrace in which the case for austerity economics now resides, it is unlikely that politicians and policy-makers, either in Europe or in the GOP-controlled House of Representatives, will change course anytime soon.

Mitt Romney and Marie Antoinette stand for the adoration of the privileged few who prosper from great nations and a condescension toward the many who make great nations, whom Romney should salute and not insult.

The Republican convention, with its high-tech stage and Hollywood directors, will try to remake Mitt Romney once more, reintroducing him as a family man of faith, charitable, good-hearted, experienced in business and government, ready to put America back on track. Romney is of, by and for the very Gilded Age capitalism that generated extreme inequality, rising poverty and a declining middle class even before it blew up the economy. He will change his views on social issues to fit the prevailing winds, and remake his image with each rising sun. But on economic issues he is the man from Bain. Want more of what we've had? He is your man.